Cold
by Ruthlawliet
Summary: The weather gives Hannibal's nightmares a realistic hold, and he and Will have to survive them.
1. Chapter 1

COLD

Hannibal couldn't go outside. It was cold and sharp and the sky looked liked it was going to snow any minute. He was trapped inside his office because he was reluctant to go outside to his car. Normally, some bad weather would only make him a bit anxious, but lately he'd been suffering nightmares from his childhood, those weeks in the stable, holding his sister's hand, the tender, sharp ache in his broken arm, the boiling metal tub with the rattling of the deer skull inside- Hannibal quickly let go of those memories and tried to think of something else. Cooking, upcoming therapy sessions, anything. He breathed deeply and sat back in his chair at his desk. He wasn't used to sudden intrusive thoughts like that. Cold air from a hidden draft somewhere gave the nightmares a realistic hold. Hannibal knew he couldn't stay at his office like a scared child.

He turned off the lights and slipped into his overcoat, taking extra time in the waiting room to button it up all the way and pop the collar around his neck. Outside it was bitingly cold and his coat felt unsubstantial to the sharp wind. He took calm steps to his car, pretending like the cold was just annoying instead of tying his stomach into knots of thick dread. He drove home with the heaters on full blast.

Once home he stacked logs in the fireplace as the first snowflakes started to fall outdoors, and drank tea in his armchair as the blizzard started to howl. He didn't want to brave the cold in the morning, didn't want to scrape the ice off his car to go to work and act normal. Maybe he'd be lucky and the roads would become too bad for his patients to come in. He kept one eye on the weather tracker on his tablet.

During a dinner of 'veal', his cell phone rang, which was very unusual. The only people that had his personal cell number were his therapist and his half-patient, half-friend...Will Graham. Hannibal answered his phone while glancing at the turkish style clock on the mantel. It was nearly 11:45 PM.

"Hello, Will."

"Doctor Lecter?" The special agent was out of breath and his voice was muffled. "Listen, I'm so sorry to call late, but I got called out for another body that was found just now. I...I think it's the Ripper."

Hannibal didn't react. He knew he hadn't killed anyone in the past month.

"Where was it found?"

"Shenandoah National Park. Doctor Lecter, I-" Suddenly, Will's voice was cut off and Jack Crawford, the top police inspector in charge of most East Coast homicide cases, spoke through the phone speakers.

"Doctor Lecter, we need you out here."

Hannibal stiffened in his chair. He cocked his head to the left and carefully composed himself to refuse, courteously. He couldn't go back out in the snow.

"Agent Crawford, the roads are icy and my car is not suitable-"

"It's okay, we got you covered. An agent should be arriving with a car to your house soon."

"Jack, I-"

"Will's had a breakdown."

Hannibal flinched. He had been hoping Will's eventual mental crumbling would happen a lot later in the year...Maybe in a warmer month.

"We need you here." Jack said. "Will's convinced it's the Ripper again and we can't get him to calm down."

Hannibal knew he couldn't refuse or else he would look suspicious. He suppressed a rising feeling of nausea and dread in his gut, half-listened to Jack's prattling on about Will and politely hung up when he sensed he was released from the inspector. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and shut off his anxiety to go into autopilot.

He covered his plate and put it the fridge so he could fully enjoy it later, finished his glass of wine, and put his heaviest coat on and buttoned it like a man preparing to walk to the executioner's chopping block. He wound his thickest scarf around his neck, packed his gloves and a hat, and tucked his cell phone in his jacket pocket in case Jack called and said the case was off, Will was fine, and Hannibal could go home.

A Mercedes pulled into Hannibal's driveway and he walked to it, hardly feeling the cold through pure stubbornness. Once they were on their way, the police agents riding with him tried to strike up conversation and Hannibal responded with programmed social graces. Secretly, he was in the brightest, warmest room in his mental mind palace, the place he escaped to when the world was too much. He admiring the Parisian sculptures he had placed by sunlit windows and stubbornly refused to wander down the hallways with the pits in the floor full of dark memories and his sister's teeth.

The road was slick and sometimes the car slid a little on the snow, but the agent driving the car was in control and confidently steered the dark back roads.

They drove up into the wooded Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. After about two grueling hours of driving they turned down a gravel road and plunged deeper into the skeletal forest. The headlights illuminated falling snow and the unmarked road ahead. Finally, they parked in a clearing with a mass of police cars, and the agents informed Hannibal that from here would had to walk. The woods were silent except for the crunching of snow beneath boots. Hannibal was still in his Mind Palace, but now from the window he could mentally feel a draft that brought ice and the smell of burning wood.

Finally, he and the agents emerged on a hilltop that was bare of trees and gave a view of the mountain rage and valleys below. Hannibal found himself taking comfort in the open space.

There were huge transportable flood lights illuminating the mountain top. Police officers and the forensics team were gathered around several holes along the base of an immense dead tree. In the top branches, dangling like grotesque christmas tree ornaments, were several human bodies that ranged from young adult to middle age. Standing at the base of the tree, illuminated by the lights and his shadow elongated on the glittering snow, Will Graham wavered like a man on the edge of a cliff. The snow around the tree was untouched by footprints except for the line following Will. Jack Crawford noticed the Hannibal approach and stood up from one of the holes, pausing to remove his latex gloves before shaking Hannibal's hand.

"What do we have here, Jack?" Hannibal asked.

Jack sighed and looked up at the tree. "Six bodies, male and female, two freshly killed and the rest from last month. All gutted and strung up like fish on a line. A helicopter spotted the tree this afternoon and called us in. They've been hanging since 6 p.m."

The snow was falling in fat flakes now, almost beautiful if it weren't for the grisly scene they rained down upon. There was the special sound of snow hitting snow, and the hum of the generators for the floodlights.

"We brought Will here just as the snow started and he kept repeating that it's the Ripper, no matter how much evidence we have to prove otherwise...This isn't the guy we've been hunting for six months, this is the work of an amateur."

"Who happened to get away with six murders." Hannibal added. "The Ripper wouldn't have chosen such a remote place. From the file Will's drawn up, the Ripper likes to show off, likes to display his victims in a public place to humiliate them. Whoever put there here didn't want them to be found before he was finished."

"Finished with what?"

"His _offering_." _I guess_, Hannibal added silently. His fingers were starting to get numb. He couldn't feel his toes and the icy breeze cut through his pants where his coat didn't cover below his thighs. He walked through the snow, leaving Jack to talk with the police officers, and stood beside Will. The special agent wasn't wearing a coat; it was discarded in the snow behind him. Will's eyes were closed and the eyelids twitched as his imagination worked in overdrive. His lips were blue and his hair was frozen to his head from sweat. His dark flannel shirt had snow dusting his shoulders where he didn't bother to brush it off.

"Will."

Will's eyelids jerked in recognition of his name. He opened them slowly, pupils unfocused as he came back to reality.

"Oh." He stumbled and started to shiver violently, shudders spreading throughout his whole body. He flexed his hands and looked at his red fingertips before realizing he was covered in snow. Hannibal bent down and retrieved Will's coat, shook the snow off it, and draped it over his patient's shoulders. Will clutched it around himself and shook so hard his teeth rattled.

"Jack!" Hannibal called, attempting to warm Will's hands by rubbing them to get the blood flowing. Will looked at him in a panicked, distant kind of way. He wasn't fully in his own body yet. It was unnerving. Jack came over, took one look at Will's shaking, and started shouting at the police officers to get Will a shock blanket.

"Get him several." Hannibal corrected. He hesitated, then reluctantly took off his own coat and put it on Will. The cold diced though his suit like fangs and Hannibal's knees buckled. He pushed his sudden panic down, hid it as a animal hides a wound. He would not crack now. Not after he had managed to bury his nightmare so deep.

Jack returned with the blankets and a cup of coffee that had gone lukewarm. He and Hannibal helped Will tuck the warmth around him and made the special agent drink. Will's shuddering was not subsiding and Hannibal made a quick decision.

"Jack, I will take Will back to his house. He can't be out in the cold like this anymore without seriously hurting himself."

Jack hesitated, then nodded absently and stepped back. Hannibal took Will's elbow and lead them away from the lights and chaos. At the mouth of the woods Will stopped to arrange his blankets, but Hannibal kept walking. It was so cold. His composure was starting to crack and splinter like ice. Will caught up with him by jogging lightly and they plowed through the dark woods together, scant moonlight lighting their way. It would have been terribly beautiful if Hannibal could stop and look, but his vision had narrowed to the path ahead and as he walked to the car he curbed the very real feeling of the steel collar freezing into the flesh around his neck.

They reached the clearing with the cars and Will ran ahead to unlock the door of his PT Cruiser before walking around to the passenger door. Hannibal sat down behind the wheel, slammed the driver's side door, and looked down at his hands, his usually perfectly steady surgeon hands that could stitch a wound and open a new one with ease. His never-failing hands that now were shaking like flames in wind. His breathing sounded unusually loud in the quiet space, racked with shuddering fear as he fought to control himself. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white as Will opened the passenger down and sat down. When Hannibal turned the key in the ignition and the car roared to life did he relax marginally.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Hannibal reached over to turn up the heat because the air in the car was still misting around his mouth. Nothing came out of the heaters when he cranked the dial.

"Oh, yeah, my heater's broken." Will said apologetically. "Old car."

Hannibal nearly strangled him purely out of frustration. He gripped the wheel again instead and bit his mouth like he was trying to retain the body heat inside his skin instead of breathing it into the freezing air.

Since Will's house was closer to the crime scene than Hannibal's house in Baltimore, Maryland, Hannibal turned the car and began the long drive to Wolf Trap, Virginia. It would take them at least an hour, and already Hannibal was starting to consider just stopping at a restaurant or hotel for the night. He drove carefully over the unmarked snow, going slowly so he wouldn't spin on the ice. They were the only car on the roads, everyone else being sensible enough to stay _indoors_ where it was _warm and dry. _


	2. Chapter 2

The cloth seat Hannibal was sitting on started to feel like a block of ice that he was strapped to. Now his body from hips down was numb. At a stop sign he remembered Will in the seat next to him, and glanced over. Will was curled up in his seat, head against the window, still shaking despite the many covers on him. The special agent apparently felt Hannibal's eyes on him and looked over.

"Are you okay to drive?" He asked. "It's pretty late, are you too tired?"

"No. I am fine." Hannibal lied. He knew that if he let Will drive in his state they would probably end up in a ditch somewhere, and then Hannibal would probably _have_ to strangle him. "Are _you _okay?"

"Not really. Never have been, come to think of it….I'm sorry about this." Will muttered, turning back to the window. The light changed and they kept driving.

"Sorry about what?" Hannibal was now using the conversation as a distraction from the cold. He couldn't hide in his Mind Palace while he drove, after all.

"Sorry you had to come all the way out here and pick me up."

Hannibal was silent. Will _should_ be sorry. He knew he was being unreasonable but he didn't care.

"It is no problem Will. Your well-being is more important than my comfort." Lies, all lies. He was starting to reconsider the strangling idea; he might need Will's body warmth and that wouldn't last long if the special agent was dead.

"What happened to you, Will? Most cases like this do not leave you completely unaware of your reality in such an extreme way."

Will was quiet as he considered Hannibal's words, and the slush of snow gleaning under the car tires lent ambient background noise. Hannibal could hear over the snow the sound of Will licking his lips and he was suddenly transported back in time to the stable in the snow. The men taking his sister away for the pot, them licking their lips. Flames heating the water of the bathtub. A rolling boil rattling the copper.

"Hannibal!" He snapped back to reality in time to see a large deer in the middle of the road, illuminated by the headlights. He had a second to comprehend the word 'animal' before slamming on the breaks. The car fishtailed on the snow with a screech of tires and he fought it for a second before crashing into the deer on the passenger side, hearing it smash into the window and shatter the glass.

The car tires suddenly gripped the road again with a tight swerve and jerked them back on the right side of the road. Hannibal stopped the car abruptly and the engine hissed in the silence that followed. He and Will sat in shock. Hannibal had smashed Will's car? He had slipped his attention, his poise had dropped, he had made a mistake. It was laughably out of character for him, a horrible twist that revealed a human nature under his disguise. Will was looking at him in sudden terror; his anchor, his grounding force that he so admired was ripped out of place and before him was another human instead of the solid psychiatrist that was above human error.

"Doctor Lecter?" Will asked. His voice shook a little. "You okay?"

Hannibal didn't answer. The cold was blowing into the car from the broken window, and Hannibal's fingers tightened forcefully on the wheel again. He wanted nothing more than to turn the car back on and drive away, leave this night and never mention it again. He knew, though, that Will would have to check out the deer, see if it was okay. Will's unhelpful compassion for animals was extremely annoying at times. Maybe they could stand over the beast, proclaim it dead, and leave.

"Let us see to the deer." He opened his door against the wind, and walked back to where the taillights of the car illuminated a dark shape in the middle of the road. Will trailed after him.

The deer had been a large stag, with a full rack and thick, powerful body. It lay on it's side, unmoving, with no discernable injuries. It appeared dead.

"Crap." Will said. "We're going to have to get it out of the road."

The wind picked up briefly and Hannibal shuddered, violently, and began to shiver so hard his teeth rattled. He couldn't help it now. His simple human reactions to temperature betrayed him. Will heard Hannibal's teeth chattering and awkwardly stepped closer to his psychiatrist, rubbed his palm quickly across the doctor's back in an expression of comfort. He rearranged his blankets, took off Hannibal's coat and gave it back, and Hannibal quickly buttoned it up and wrapped his arms around himself.

"Thank you. L-let us move it." He said, shuffling through the snow to the head of the deer. Hannibal never stuttered, Will thought, and moved quickly to the stag's hindquarters. He considered the huge animal, dismaying in the thought that it was way too heavy to move and they might have to leave it for someone else to run over.

As soon as he reached down to touch it, however, the animal twitched, shook, and opened it's eyes. It lurched upwards, driving it's antlers at Hannibal, who quickly stepped back, and the stag pulled itself to it's hooves. It's eyes showed white, rolling and wild, and it stumbled away from them and threw itself awkwardly over the ditch on the side of the road and fell heavily into the snow next to the trees. It lay for a moment, panting, and staggered drunkenly once again upwards and disappeared into the trees, limping heavily.

"I thought for sure it was dead," Will said in disbelief. They had to have hit it at almost 35 miles an hour, how it could still move?

"Perhaps it used it's last reserves of energy to run off and die in the woods." Hannibal responded, arms still around himself. "Prey animals will keep running for amazing lengths of time." He walked back to the car without further comment and Will once again followed. The wind was blowing stinging ice crystals across the snow, buffeting their faces and forcing them to squint their eyes against it. Will's side of the car had a huge dent in it, and the paint was scoured all the way down the length of it, presumably from the stag's antlers. The passenger door's window was broken, and the backseat window was badly cracked.

"I will pay for all repairs," Hannibal said, standing beside Will. He was still shuddering. "The car should still be able to run. Will, do you know of any nearby restaurants or hotels we can stop at for the night? I may not be in condition to drive." This was a bit of an understatement. He was in no condition to be talking rationally, let alone power a vehicle, but Hannibal was determined to hold out. That's what saved him as a child, after all, a pure stubbornness to survive.

"There might be a motel about three miles up ahead." Will said. Hannibal nodded and wrenched the passenger door with a bit of difficulty. Will walked around to the driver's side and got in, slammed the door, causing bits of glass to fall in form the passenger window, and twisted the key in the ignition. The car engine warmed up loudly, and started to stall.

"Oh no," Will whispered, unbelieving. He turned off the car, and twisted the key again. The motor kept running without catching. "Oh, shit."

He tried a few more times, hearing the awful grating run that never stopped. "Oh, shit, shit, shit."


End file.
